Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys, I was wanting to start up a Tyranid army, however I keep looking at the paints and finding myself kind of bumbling about it- I mean, the colors on the computer screen and what you actually get are completely different, right?

Anyway point is, I'm looking to paint the chitinous armor of my Tyranids blue, and the underbelly sort of a deep, deep purple. What would Dakka say would be proper for this? Think... In terms of normal crayons, a royal purple underbelly and teal-ish armor? Also, any other suggestions to make this army come to life will be loved. Thanks!

In terms of GW points, getting names now is pointless. They're about to all be renamed and relaunched.

I got some nids in my blog that are red carapace fleshy body tone, look in their codex for some ideas, learn to love citadel washes, they turn bleached bone into what I mine turned into. it was foundations mechrite red and bleached bone skin, devlin mud wash.

I feel like im rambling but yeah just remember not to pick an over complicated scheme because you'll be painting 100000 termagaunts and 4000000 genestealers

Molotovsoda wrote: just remember not to pick an over complicated scheme because you'll be painting 100000 termagaunts and 4000000 genestealers

That's the plan! xD

Try to give them scorpion green eyes to make them look more alien, it will also contrast well with the blues and purples. Paint the eye black first to deepen it then give it some green over that. Also decide if you want to make the guns the same colour as the Tyranid's flesh. You can paint them like they are part of the same bio-mass or do them a contrasting colour.

Here is an online Tyranid painter that may help you.http://www.fallensunasylum.org/nids/online_painter.html

Oh wow, thanks! And yes. Totally bright green eyes!

Honestly, Blue and Purple seldom look well together. It will probably look like a pop-tart. I suggest either purple and green or blue and orange. Also avoid excessive use of gloss varnish and washes. Washes look obvious when used unless paired for more layers of highlighting post-wash.

Blue and Purple are so close together that you're not going to have much contrast between the two colors so they will tend to blend together visually.

A way you can fix this is if you use a dark, desaturated (dull) purple for the skin, and a lighter saturated blue for the carapace. This will create contrast through value (brightness) of the colors and also through saturation (richness) of the colors.

To darken a color without desaturating it too much mix in the opposite color on the color wheel. You can create a desaturated color by adding in small amount of grey to it on a pallet. By darkening the color first and then gradually desaturaing it bit by bit you will limit the risk of losing to much of the color all at once.

Well, I want them to look as alien as possible. I was just thinking that blue and purple could accomplish that. However, using the Tyranid army painter... I really like bright blue and yellow. Seems Alien enough to me, but what do you guys think?

Lots of contrast there. Good luck with yellow. I suggest making them earthy, unsaturated tones. This means using browns, and bone colors to highlight and downlight with both colors. Experiment tho ti figure out what you like. You probably have tons of termagaunts so test on those.

Blue and purple, with green eyes would look good imo. I'm kind of bias cause that's my eldar paint scheme

If you want to see how the paint would look on a model have a look at my gallery

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/333458-.html?m=2